Reality wasn't too far from the dream

So I had another work dream. This time it was triggered by the first day at the new site. Same old job, but new location, trying to figure out travel times and buses and getting used to new setup of systems. And of course I was the Floor Support which is fine...except when it comes to people asking me how to do transfers, logging in etc.

So my dream was that I was at work, and we were trying to figure out how to use the systems. We were in a classroom and looking at slides of the phone. D was there too, although he's really found a new job. D was making fun of my troubles trying to learn the system. Anyways, we finally got to go home, so we started walking home. Somehow it turned out that we were walking thru a forest environment, and I did have my brand new pink Nike sandals (Yes, I got it from the youth section, and it was on sale) We're walking and we get into an hilly area, and the trail is next to a ravine. So I insist on walking on the inside b/c I don't like to walk on the edge, which D finds hilarious. We walking some more, and we start hitting mountainous area. And we have to cross a wooden cloth bridge, and D goes first and then as I'm crossing, he starts shaking and swaying it. So I'm hanging on in fun, and then I start to notice that the bridge is really breaking apart, and I hurry off it before it falls completely apart. We're up in the mountains now, and the path is snaking around the face of the mountain. There's a Roman outpost on the side of the mountain, and D just walks past it. I look in the window, and there's people sleeping. Suddenly a Roman centurion (who looks vaguely like Julius Ceasar from Asterix & Obelix) steps out of the outpost looking around. I go to hide in the curtain, but he hears me, so sneak into the outpost and hide under the bed. The centurion walks into the room, and the sleeping African soldier wakes up and says he didn't notice anything, but starts getting up. I sense that he's had a busy night b/c he found a dancer that came from his home village and his dances reminded him of home so...he slept w/ her. His lover wakes up and gets out of bed too, and she's ...pretty ugly. Around 4" w/ loose rolls of skin hanging off her. And fairly old, and waddles around. And as they're walking around, I wake up. And find that I slept thru my alarm so no chance to pick up the dream.

So what really happened at work was that I did manage to get off at the correct stop, was a little lost on which entrance to get into the place. Didn't have a seat, spent the first 1/2 hr wondering where everything was. Was totally useless trying to use the phones, which wasn't much fun b/c I had to call a cust back. I wasn't in the right queue so when my friend just logged me in, I ended up getting calls that I just released until I figured out how to stop them. Fought w/ the computer b/c the settings they have on it make it really annoying, and you couldn't change them either. I was very exhausted. And b/c I'm riding the bus now, I need to figure out what to take to occupy my time. Reading is okay but my eyes are tired at the end of the day...which means reading is probably a good thing b/c I'll have to keep my eyes open and not fall asleep (which I've done before). Bringing my DS isn't an option b/c I don't have my locked drawer anymore. My CD player is old, but still... no secure location, especially when I won't be at my desk all the time. Guess books it is.

Drowning in Donations

Argh, was going thru my backlog of donation requests. I give a fair bit, have like my 6 charities I like to give, which was whittled down a bit from before. However although I'm pretty sure I'm fairly diligent w/ checkmarking the "do not share my info w/ other organizations" box, I've gotten a slew of mail from other charities. Some I don't mind, like MADD, but crikey! I still have a huge stack of them, and I try to check out their charity registries on Revenue Canada first. It's quite...irritating. And I'm so sick of the labels they send as gifts. I also have a huge stack of cards and notepads, but those are at least more useful. The most you can do w/ labels is use them as stickers. And when some of those labels are reeeeeaaally ugly, you just gotta trash them. Like the CNIB mailbox ones. I still have labels from my old address that I keep b/c they're good stickers.

I like .hack music. *listening to The Story Where You Are*

Ugh, and filling out those surveys that you get on your reciepts too. I had fun scoring Sears poorly. I hate going there. No one picks anything up, and there are boxes in the same place a month later. But the surveys are too long. And one of the questions for the Bay was "I can’t imagine a world without The Bay." Like WTF?

Leading by example

So anyways, I'm again targetted by the fat lazy b!tch. I come in at my scheduled start time and log into my phn to show I'm here. Then I check my duty schedule again, get waylaid by a few people, and go to the b!tch to get into the right queue. And we started talking about how easy it is to get paper cuts (I'd just gotten one from a newspaper), and she says it's all done. So after I was finished talking to customers and switched to answering reps questions, she comes up behind me and asks me what I'm looking at. So this was when I'd just lost the NYC subway page I was looking at, and I was trying to see if I could find it again in the History (apparently not in the version of IE that was installed), so I was kinda distracted and caught off guard. So I tell her I'm looking for NY subways. And she's like "is that for a customer?" And I'm still pretty braindead b/c I'd been waiting for questions for a while, so I'd still hadn't clued that she's trying to get me into trouble, so I go "Uh, no, I was looking at them b/c of Spiderman 3" Then she says "well you know our Internet policy don't you? So I'm going to have to -ask- you to close that window." And I'm thinking WTF? Everyone goes on the Internet, even TLs when they're not supposed to technically so as long as I'm not looking at porn or doing bad things, who cares? We've always been able to surf as long as we still do our job. Anyways, I see her go to talk to my mgr. Then I check on my schedule and she marked it down that I was late! And also messed up my schedule too for the next 2 weeks. So I msg my manager about it, and he's like "oh, okay, well don't worry about the schedule b/c I go by your punches." Then he asks me about the Internet thing, and I'm like "my prev TL(who's found a better job) told me it was okay, and when I mentioned it to the Ops Mgr, he didn't make a comment." So my Mgr likes to keep things neutral and just tells me to keep off the Net until he gets it clarified.

So the rest of my shift consisted of me letting my friends use my computer whenever we wanted to look something up on the Net b/c then I'm not doing it. But geez, considering I have a comic book cover as my background which can only be acquired by surfing, which you can see whenever my computer is locked, and NO ONE's made a comment about it, seems to indicate that it's not a big deal that I have Internet. Just the b!tch is picking on me. Incidentally when she corrected my schedule, she removed that I was late that day. Probably trying to make it seem that she's not targetting me. But I did show my friends everything, so it's really just stupid what she's pulling. Everyone's seen and knowsTLs goof off at work, when they're supposed to be working. I do my work, but keep myself awake by surfing b/c otherwise I won't see the chat requests on my screen. I'd spent that day reading my book, snipping split ends, chatting w/ my friends, and getting really close to dozing off. None of which meant paying attention to the computer. But I'm sure that b!tch's going to spin some crap to the Ops Mgr. If I were to act like her, I'd be a backstabbing lazy cow who blames others all the time.

Anyways today I took D out for his b-day dinner. I actually had a dream that he fell asleep and forgot or some other thing that we didn't go today. And he actually did have a concert that he'd just found out about that he wanted to go to w/ his friend but couldn't afford the tickets. Anyways we managed to find the Fuji Palace restaurant, but it was only so-so. The price wasn't bad for amt of food, but there was some confusion about the menu, the salmon sashimi wasn't fully thawed out, and the cutting of the maki wasn't even. Taste-wise, it was only okay.

Review: Spider-man 3

Pretty darn awesome. The fight scenes were really good and well done. Couldn't tell all the CGI work. The storyline wasn't bad either. There were some overly sentimental lines, and it really seemed that they rushed the time that everything happened in. Really we're talking about maybe a week at most between opening night from MJ's musical to the funeral. I know Petey has the bad luck hindrance, but everything happened way too fast for people's feelings to flip-flop so fast.

Yeah, so I saw the midnight showing w/ some of my friends. Except one of them slept thru 75% of it, and all week he'd been pumped up about watching it. It was pretty funny. I'm going to see it again tonight, at the IMAX w/ D. I told him to invite his other friends, but he probably forgot.

Been spending the last...4 1/2 hrs trying to get my DS registered on the Nintendo WiFi site so I'll get the d/l from them. But I don't have any friend codes, so that pretty sucks. You'd think Nintendo would have a default one for the company for us. Still hasn't worked apparently, although it says that testing was successful.

Chance meeting of geeks

So I was in Shoppers Drug Mart on my break, and they had the new Shonen Jump magazine. And it had a preview of Houshin Engi, which meant I had to get it. I loved the anime, not just b/c it had Hiro Yuuki, Rica Matsumoto and Akira Ishida in it. Anyhoo, I take it to the counter, and the young Asian cashier first just asked me if I minded that she put it in the same bag as w/ my facial cleaning stuff. So I'm thinking "well it's already in a sealed bag b/c of the YuGiOh card, and the bottles shouldn't leak anyways." Then she asked me if I like anime, so I'm like yeah. Then she asked me if I was going to Animethon, and I said "Totally! but the last 3 years I've been working it." So she tells me that she was also there working last year at the Warp 1 table, and wanted to know which table I was at. So I tell her that I was at a table for a company that came from BC and they sold DVDs and manga, and that I was going to probably be there again this year, although the manager hadn't contacted me about that but he did let us keep the T-shirts that we had to wear last year. Then I asked her that she must know Lin (manager of Warp 1) and that I go to Warp all the time. I didn't recognize her as an employee of the store, but Lin's brought in people that I didn't recognize to work the event b/c their table's always busy. But it turned out that she's actually part of the drawing circle that Warp1 had sponsored. So by this time, I'd forgotten that I hadn't paid yet and there was starting to be a line too. So I paid, grabbed my stuff and waved bye to each other. But wow, that was fun and funny, how manga brings us together. I'm sure the people waiting thought we did know each other. And yeah, she was pretty cute.

As for the YuGiOh card, completely useless unless you have a hero deck. Which I don't. Haven't played YuGi for a long time now, but I still have my cards. I had an Amazon/water/furry cute deck. And yes, I did win a decent share of matches against my friends who have 1000s of cards.

Quiz: What Your Hands Say About You

What Your Hands Say About You

You are logical, analytical, and rational. You have good verbal skills. Flexible and broad minded, you can fit in to any situation. There's no telling where your life will take you. Consistent and reliable, you like to count on structure and routine in your life. Your emotions tend to be relaxed and uncomplicated. You don't read too much into things.

What Do Your Hands Say About You?

Well I'd certainly like that to be true but the quiz was way too short. And I was expecting questions like "how many times have you cut your hand that it required stiches?" (2 and both thumbs) "Have you lost any of your fingers? And was it an accident?" (anyone an unsuccessful yakuza member?) LOL, yeah but some of it is pretty close... to describing 30% of the population.

Quiz: What American accent do you have?

What American accent do you have?
Created by Xavier on Memegen.net

Canada. You probably get irritated when British people and Europeans think you're from the States, but over here we wouldn't make a mistake like that.

LOL, right on! Although I've been known to take on Southern, British (don't ask me which region, I watch Brit comedy and only know how to distinguish btwn a few), Valley Girl accents. Some people may think me crazy, but if you're proofreading essays, it actually helps to read them out in diff accents b/c it forces you to listen to watch you've written, and you'll pick out grammatical errors.

Just a note about this quiz, I had to do a lot of html corrections on it to get it to display properly. Kinda sad b/c it's been ages since I've written html code. Err, other than to make my blog page.

Time to declare war

Yeah, so I go to check when my breaks are scheduled, and it seems the fat b!tch marked me as being tardy by 19 min, when I actually showed up only 6 min late. Blah blah that I'm supposed to be logged into my phone at the scheduled start time. She wasn't even accurate on when I did start taking calls. And really, considering my position when I could be talking w/ my supervisor or checking what I'm supposed to be doing or rebooting the computer, none of us on our team are ever logged in on time. And it's only on the days when I have to go up to her to have my split changed. And since they removed the previous week's schedule and the system we used to use to check any changes, I can't see how long this crap has been going on. But I'm letting my fellow team members know about it so they can watch out for it. The fat b!tch gives attitude to our entire team, so everyone needs to watch out. But I guess I gotta keep my ass in gear on the days I need to have my split changed by her b/c my duties are different that day.

And then an OM came by when I was on a call, and said that he wanted to talk to me but since I was on the call, he said he'd see me next week. So it's either going to be my complaint about the fat b!tch (highly unlikely b/c most of those complaints go nowhere) or me surfing the Web or printing some stuff out. If they're going to whine about that crap, there's so much other junk that we see supervisors doing and don't mention, it'd be really obvious that they're just picking on me. And considering they're retaining agents like a sieve, do they really need to make more agents pissed off? While I won't say that I'm indispensible to the company (we are really just numbers to most of them), my quality and experience isn't something easy to replace. Course I've probably developed a reputation of being argumentative and cynical which is great for my fellow reps b/c I'll spill the dirt and won't take crap, but I know I've scared TLs before. It's pretty easy to tell when they never coach you so you actually have to request a meeting, and then when they tried to monitor you, you have to correct them and then teach them how to use the systems. Yeah, that still makes me laugh.

No particular reason

Just felt like blogging. Sorta that itch that's bothering me. Not quite like the itch on my left palm. That has been bugging me for ages. At first it was like a little pinprick from possibly getting poked by something. And it seemed to sorta heal. Then it got itchy. And I'd scratch. And it'd hurt after a while so I'd stop. And then it'd start up again. Now there's little bumps under my skin at that spot. And it seems I've scratched that area so much, that the skin is separating off the bottom layer. So I peeled it off. Maybe that'll help.

Anyways, read H's blog/livejournal. I don't really see what's the big deal that'd you'd actually pay for a diary spot. Anyhoo, she's still dreaming/thinking about this guy, who's not her hubby but she slept w/. I've really got no comment about their "open relationship", it's not something I'd do. But this guy is just bad news and has messed up her life. And she's still f*cking obsessing over him. Why couldn't she obsess over the German, Irish or any of the other EU guys she's slept w/ while she was overseas? At least they're all adults. And probably a hell lot interesting.

And I'm like the world's biggest slacker/procrastinator. Keep on forgetting to book a dental appointment, and get my eyes checked, so I use my benefits before I jump ship. Argh! Anyways work's been a b!tch. Well there's been one particular b!tch that's been getting on our nerves. I'd been using my supervisor access to keep myself from falling asleep while on the computer waiting for chats (just googling comic books and visiting various G - PG sites), and print a few things off for personal use, and one of the supervisors saw me. So while I was on my break, and someone else was covering for me on the chat, the annoying b!tch came over to check what windows were open. Since I was trying to find stores which sold a book I wanted, I left that window up. Which the b!tch made my friend pull up. But like seriously, considering all the times I've left my computer locked and you can obviously see that my background is not something that came w/ the computer (it's actually the cover from a Deadpool/Cable issue.) how can you not figure out that I have greater access to the Net?! Anyways, if my supervisor wants to see what I was looking at today, all he'll see is a whole lot of comic book stores and visits to the Berlin Zoo to coo over Knut.

And following the Great Turtle Race. Poor Stephanie Colburtle. She woulda won if the aim was to actually reach the islands, not just get into the general area. That Billie was way too far north to actually hit the beaches. And what's w/ Sundae and Drexelina?

Yeah, so again my stomach was bugging me. Last few days I've been bloated by gas. Mostly the burping kind. But last night really sucked. And my stomach this morning was hurting big time, that I was thinking of calling in sick. But I'm better now. And if I call in sick tomorrow (friday) think it might be a wee suspicious b/c I have the weekend off? And I'll be able to see T before he leaves for LA???

If you won't listen to me, then don't ask for help

Ah, another work rant. So one of the jobs I do as Floor Support is answer reps' questions over a chat program. And most of the questions are inane, stuff they could find if they could read and actually had any brains to search for. I really do mean literally just search b/c they provide a search function for their policies and procedures. It's a crappy search tool and not forgiving, but it does work. So you got a question on military suspensions? Oooh, type in military suspensions and it'll give you results w/ the word in the article. I've seriously had to tell people step by step: type in this, click on this link, what do you mean you can't find it?, do you see the chart/sentence?, read the chart/sentence. It's absolutely pathetic. And it doesn't help when you're standing next to them and you tell them where to go, and then they just start scrolling to god knows where, and you have to go "what are you doing?", make them click the link again and then stick your finger on the screen and go it's right here, or grab their mouse and highlight the passage for them b/c they can't read. I had a rep I sat next to, and I'll read the note and go, "see it's right here". And then they read it and they're like "okay". And you ask them, "do you understand what you should tell the customer?" and they tell you "no", and you tell them to read it again. And they'll read it out loud. So you ask them again, if they understand it. And they'll read the part of the note you tell them to look at. And you ask them, "do you understand what you should tell the customer?" And then they tell you "no" again. So you ask them what part they don't understand. And it's the whole friggin' thing, b/c they can't seem to understand that when the rep notated that customer can't get CR for equipment until it's returned, it really does mean that the cust can't get CR for equip until it's returned! Like WTF?! And of course there's the people who can't do add or subtract anything beyond 10.

Uh, anyways back to my original rant. So I'm answering questions on the chat program, and at least twice the agent will ask me the question, I'll give them the answer and then they'll flag a roving Floor Support and ask them the same frigging question. Once my fellow FS answered at the exact same time that my reply posted. I was wondering why the agent closed the chat so fast. And then there's an agent which I once actually praised her for being able to explain prorating to the customer, who I could hear was asking a roaming FS the same question I answered. So I typed that I could hear her talking to him. That is so unbelievably rude and such a waste of my and my friends' time. Rargh!!!! Just wanna go over and smack them.

Anyways, all's not too entirely horrible at work. Well that's not exactly true. It's more that I'm buidling friendships at work, which helps alleviate the stress. We're getting into a semi-tradition to watch RAW at the local bar. End up spending $10+ more than wanted, but it really helps socially, emotionally and mentally (although not physically b/c pub food isn't all that healthy).

Computer madness

You ever get the feeling that you're suddenly so behind on stuff that it's kinda scary? Well I'm not talking about filing my tax return (which I'm doing until I realized that I can't look at paper, or anything close up w/ my contacts in b/c it starts feel like I'm going cross-eyed), but actually updating my computer. We're not talking about getting a new one, but I've gotten a DVD-burner (just a few years behind) and while I'm fully aware of dual layer, DVD-RAM and +/-...it's when I start reading up on it, that my brain starts to fry a little. A wee more complicated than before, but then again, it's stuff I know but forgot. Like I've forgotten everything about CD+/-R, CD-RW etc. However I've developed a skill of bluffing my way thru a lot of stuff I know vaguely about. Using a lot of logic and deduction, you can piece a lot of stuff together. It's how I do a lot of my job...well that and actually reading up on stuff. Gotten pretty good at searching things out. So it's time to hit the web again, and use it for information searching. Which is mostly what I use it for. Gawd, I'm on the computer all day at work, coming home and being on the computer more seems...kinda masochistic. Just want to get away from it a bit. Too bad I can't get towards doing more exercise *sheepish laugh* Darn gym's closed by time I get home...and working out before going to work seems torturous to myself and those I'll sit next too.

I'm same way on talking to people. I talk to people for 8 hrs, why do I want to do more when I get home? I'm so anti-social. I liked having my apt to myself. So nice and quiet. Well w/in the apt. If only my neighbours would shut up. I'd recovered some of my hearing when D was gone. Now it's all shot again b/c he turns everything up, and I don't notice unless I look at the volume number.

Anyways w/ my computer, I'd thought it was the CD burner that was shot, but it might be the files also b/c Nero won't burn some of the mp3s, even though my other CD prog would. I guess Nero has lower error tolerance. So annoying too. I had an awesome song that would play fine on my computer, but I couldn't get it to burn as .cda. I think I tried d/l about 5 progs, but still no luck. And of course w/ progs you have to be careful of viruses and malware. Waaaahhh!!!!!!!

It was my friend's b-day, but I'm not very inclined to get her anything more than token stuff. She's been extremely stupid this past year, ignoring all our advice and doing things that could jeopardize her career and relationships. And on the scale of present reciprocity, it's been really unbalanced. Pretty unhappy about spending money on someone I'm losing respect for.

Darn, just remembered I need to make a congratulations/best wishes/been nice working w/ you card. She's leaving this week, and I wanted to showcase my calligraphy to her. Still can't think of what to write though. She's leaving b/c of better job and upper managements been treating supervisors like ....just above dirt. Like global warming. Keep on dumping stuff despite previous studies that it's bad for the (work) environment, until it's too late. And then they have to create a bill to try and reverse it (hiring drive).

I also got Nintendogs this weekend...d'oh it's the next day already and I never played w/ him! I've got a corgi...and yes, his name is Ein.

I'm really not scared of doctors...I'm just too lazy

So my stomach/guts have been killing me for the last 3 days. I went to work on Tuesday, and got my duties changed so I'd just be typing on the computer instead of walking around. Then I've been home for the last 2 days b/c I've only managed to get maybe 3hrs of straight sleep (I've been passing out and waking back up before the snooze on my clock-radio runs out), and stuck in bed constantly b/c it hurt too much to move. Amazing how important the stomach muscles are to movement. I hadn't been able to eat much either. Today, it was a little better but I was still tired, and I'm making a lot of typos (most I've been able to catch. A lot of homonym or similar spelling errors, and just wierd ones). I was able to eat the same volume that I usually eat at least. I was thinking of going to work, but it's like, eh no. If I go to work, I'm going to be totally sick on Friday which is my day off, and that's when I finally get to see my family so screw it. Which was really a good decision. Today I was able to do laundry, but the prospect of doing 3 days of dishes was too daunting, so whatever could went into the dishwasher. Managed to sorta sort out my tax stuff. But my stomach is still aching really bad at times, and I'm still having the fits of sleep.

On the positive note, I finally got my package w/ my DS lite accessories. My DS is pretty tripped out w/ Pokemon stuff. Now I just need a bag to carry everything. Funny thing is that I was about to write an email to the company asking where my stuff was b/c it'd been over a month even w/ overseas pkg delivery. Then I go to grab my paper and there's a delivery notice under the door, so before I started writing, I changed (I've seriously been in my pjs for the last 2 days) and headed down to the office. Apparently the mailperson had just been dropping the pkgs off but not leaving notice w/ the tenants, so the manager got sick of having a ton of boxes in her office and printed out a delivery form to everyone. Technically I can now carry my DS lite w/ me on the bus b/c I have earphones (I can't wear the earbuds b/c they pop out of my too small ears), a protective plastic-silicone case that surrounds the DS, connector caps to keep out dust during travel and cases for my games. But I'm still one of those types who needs a bag to hold all the accessories.

I'd been playing a lot of Animal Crossing these past 2 days. Mostly b/c when I get home to play, all the stores are closing, so I can't sell my oranges/fish. Or shoot down presents and hunt bugs. Yeah, I'm onto paying off my 2nd mortgage. I'm actually so good at arranging and utilizing space that I've gotten the message that if I put any more stuff in the room the floor will give out. And I'm still able to move all around my house. Yeah, I rock. So far I've picked up some cool stuff like the Lucky Cat (I think Nan gave that to me) and telescope (found in recycling bin). Managed to dig up another ammonite, so that's in the house. Apparently I'm also most like Pelly. I've yet to connect to WiFi, so I'm not sure what awaits. Annoyingly, the Nintendo website does not like Firefox. I've had to open it in IE.

D will be back on Saturday. *sigh* While it's good to know that if something major happens in the apartment there'll be someone else to help drag all my crap out, it means no more leaving my my dirty sorted laundry in the living room. I guess I'll also have to semi tidy-up the stack of newspapers I have strewn on the bench. Yeah, and no leaving my bras out to dry on the rack. D and H aren't sure if H will renew her contract. But if she does, D will move out which means I'll need a new roommate. B/c I'm not very partial to spending 50% of my monthly income on rent alone. Although that'll put me more in line w/ what my fellow co-workers seem to do: live hand-to-mouth. Prob w/ a new roommate is that unless it's someone who you know and trust, you're constantly guarding against theft, conflict and deadbeatedness. Never had an argument w/ D, mostly b/c I was much better at keeping track of bills and food, and tended to be very logical on decisions, never pried too much, and kept to myself. Other than T (which would be awkward b/c of his gf), there's not really anyone else who I could probably easily room w/. Of course he likes living by himself (likes to roam in underwear, which I'll have to also stop doing once D comes back) so...*sigh*

Anyways, time to go to take a shower, go to bed, and hopefully get some real sleep. My dreams have lately been of Animal Crossing. ^_^ That is no indication that it might be time to lessen my playing.

Wrestlemania 23

Went to see Wrestlemania. It was just by myself b/c I forgot to get anything together w/ my friends. It was annoyingly expensive to see it @ the theatre. The PPV @ home would be $50, and the ticket was $25. And since I spent $10 on food (to smuggle in), that's really $35. Anyways, someone behind me had feet that smelt like stinky cheese. And when I went in an hour before it started, the idiots didn't even turn on the theatre lights or play the pre-PPV show, so it was kinda hard to see where people were sitting. Still ended up having some stupid Cena fans sitting next to me b/c they were late. At least I brought my DS lite to play. Played Animal Crossing while I waited for the PPV to start. Yeah, got that recently. Haven't been able to try the WiFi yet. The people in my building have secured their network, and I was too far away from the theatre one. It's not bad, similar to Harvest Moon, although you really don't have any objective. So far I've paid off my mortgage, harvested all the oranges in town, and won several fishing contests.

Anyways, on to the matches. Apparently there was a lumberjack dark match w/ Flair and Carlito. Gawd, they've so decimated the tag team division. There wasn't a single tag team belt on the line. Of course w/ HBK and Cena holding the RAW one (and never defending it), the divisions become a joke. I thought w/ them putting Hardys, MNM and World's Greatest Tag Team back together, they'd be reviving it. But nope, they let Joey Mercury go for some reason, so that's pretty much it. Hardly seen Benjamin or Haas even though they're extremely talented, although Haas is lacking in charisma.

First match was surprisingly the Money in the Bank. It was quite astounding. Everyone pretty much held their own. They had some awesome storytelling w/ the Hardys at the top of the ladder fighting, Booker having to give up his chance to save Sharmell, Hornswoggle trying to climb the ladder and going against Kennedy and Findley comforting Hornswoggle. Of course, the spots were excellent too, but I don't think we'll be seeing Jeff or Edge back anytime soon. I was hoping Jeff wouldn't do it b/c that was crazy dangerous, and I'm not sure if the ladder was supposed to break in half. This was a match were I wasn't sure who was going to get it, although Kennedy isn't a bad choice. They're definitely pushing him, and he has a lot of talent, mike skills, and draws good heat. Sharmell's outfit, once she let the cape down, wasn't bad.

Kane vs. Khali wasn't bad. Kane carried Khali for a lot of the match but they still worked it pretty good, and I'm not sure what they're going to do w/ Khali winning. Are they planning to have him go up against Umaga? And what'd be the point when they're both heels and seemingly unstoppable?

Benoit vs. MVP was pretty good. If MVP was better, Benoit wouldn't have to carry him so much and Benoit'd be able to let loose. Although I noticed that they didn't mention Angle's name when they were listing the technical wrestlers Benoit's gone up against. It was still pretty fun, and some good storytelling w/ the blocks and switches.

Undertaker vs. Batista was an awesome match. Excellent storytelling w/ both of them getting near-falls, intense, good pace. I have newfound respect for Batista. Before he was just there, now he's pretty cool. I couldn't figure who'd win, so that was really good and kept me on the edge.

ECW Originals vs. New Breed was...disappointing. Mostly b/c all the guys in the ring are really talented (although I hold my judgement on Sandman), and it was really short. There wasn't really anyone doing their spots except for RVD. It was really short too, which is pretty bad that 8 guys in the ring can't hold a longer or more intense match.

McMahon vs. Trump. Was there really any doubt on who'd get his head shaved? Trump who has to look "purty" (what the hell is that on his head anyways?) for the TV crap he has, or McMahon who will have "shit" dumped on him to sell a story? Loved his "babytalk" to his granddaughter. And seeing Shane O' Mac come out and do the coast-to-coast dropkick was the best. I love Shane-O. I think Lashley's had experience shaving heads b/c he put his other hand in the right spot to protect McMachon's ears and forehead. I was surprised to see Austin stunner Trump. That was awesome. I think both Umaga and Lashley were really out for the 10-count. The match itself was only ok. I think Lashley needs to demonstrate more of his technical skills.

Melina vs. Ashley. Sucked. Melina was carrying Ashley the entire time, and Ashley could barely do any moves or know how to react. Melina couldn't pull off a lot of her moves b/c Ashley would mess them up. Glad it was short. Actually I wonder if they cut it short b/c it was so bad.

HBK vs. Cena. Considering the opening that they had for HBK wasn't that astounding, and that HBK took Cena to school for the first half of the match, it's pretty obvious who'd lose. There's no way they'd let HBK humiliate Cena unless Cena's in the doghouse. And Cena cannot tell a story worth sh!t. Wasn't your knee killing you after HBk worked on it? You seemed to be rolling around a lot. And then suddenly it's working again and you're not even limping! What a frigging moron. All of HBK's work gone to waste. And of course it's the stupid STFU. 1/3 of Cena's moves right there. I sorta seemed that since HBK was going to lose, they let him go to town on Cena. The spike piledriver was toooo sweet. Something for us poor ripped off fans to savour. You think HBK had enough crosses on his outfit?

On the whole, the people I wanted to win won, except for HBK and Kane. I was pretty neutral on the Money in the Bank, just wanted an awesome match. And at least it was actually close to 4 hrs. Although much of it was filled w/ recaps of events leading to match, ads, etc. I think it was Keith David that did the voice at the beginning. It really did sound like him.

They showed an edited 1 hr version of the Hall of Fame induction on TSN on Saturday. I wanted to see William Shatner's intro for Lawler, b/c that is a bit odd choice. The vibe btwn Dustin Runnels and Cody Rhodes was kinda wierd. It seemed Cody didn't want to be near Dustin from his body language, but gave him and Dusty a lot of verbal praise. I wonder what Cody does? His speech was pretty good and he had a clear emotive voice. I wonder what happened to Mr. Fuji and why he's in a wheelchair? Of course, he's 71 so I guess all the injuries might've taken their toll. I liked Lawler's speech. Can't believe he said that crack about one of the billionaire's will have to cut a whole in his pants to run his fingers thru his hair.

Oi, my guts!

Yeah, so the other week...or was it this week? *goes to check schedule* ah, yes it was last Monday, I called in sick b/c I was super-tired and didn't feel really good. Told my supervisor it was gastro-intestinal problem b/c I left like going back to sitting on the crapper after I used it an hour before. But no explosive diarrhea. However the next 2 weeks were my guts killing me. Felt like I had spikes in my guts and chest. Sometimes I thought I was having a heart attack b/c it would be this intense sharp pain. Have to catch my breath a couple times, it hurt so much. And of course my muscles were all sore from being tense from the pain, and it was migraine city. So yeah, I felt worse than when I called in absent, but I still went to work b/c I need the extra money. Sadly, the top-up pay for Floor Support works out to be an extra $20 if all my hours were Floor Support. Anyways, it's faded a bit now, I still have to make sure that my stomach doesn't take the full weight of my blankets. Although I threw up in to the back of my throat yesterday when I was coughing. And today, I puked the stuff in my esophagus. Although my stomach felt like it wanted to go to. Still went to work. It still hurts a plenty but no sharp stabbing pains. I don't think it's PMS.

Work was...2 escalations. Both from newbie reps, and boy did the customers' notice. The guy wasn't too bad from what I could tell, seemed to be a case of the customer not knowing what to do and frustrated that the rep couldn't expl it in an easy way for her to understand. The other one was a total f*ck up. Rep didn't give me the right account, and actually screwed up someone else's account, so I had re-figure everything out for the original customer and the person w/ the messed up account. It's a good thing both of them were pretty nice. I think they could sense I was the poor schlob who has to clean up after incompetent reps. And it probably help that I was apologizing/grovelling to the guy w/ the messed up account. *sigh* Yeah, that agent will definitely be getting some feedback. Although a part of it could be the supervisors' massive insistence on maintaining stats and not quality. Reps have accounts piled on top of each other, and half the time, they don't know about which is the account that belongs to the cust on the line.

Have to return my hockey bag for the smaller one. We had a fire alarm the other day (didn't know it was just a test b/c they put the notice up on the day they did the test, so I didn't know until I went to the elevator) and it was so hard trying to drag out the bag and stuff things into it. And I didn't even want to use it b/c it was such a hassle! I know b/c soon after I got the bag, I practiced stuffing it. And that practice run caused me to tip over when I tried to sling it on my back, knock tons of things around, and was really insanely heavy to lug. Forget about trying to carry it down the stairs. Yeah, so unless I had the adrenaline rush, I wasn't willing to lug that thing. It's so bad. And of course that's when you start thinking that there's just a little bit too much stuff that I want to save.

I'm still debating on a external hard drive or laptop. My CD-burner is on fritz so I can't save anything before I install WinXP. And I just have enough RAM to get it, well once JR gets me his spare parts. I got irritated b/c he wasn't able to get it for me when he said he would, even though it's a semi-favour b/c I'm paying him for his old CD burner and RAM. Yeah, I'm pretty bitchy and thoughtless at times. Bought a DVD burner but I can't install it yet b/c I need WinXP. Argh!!!!

Quiz: How Misanthropic Are You?

You Are 72% Misanthropic

Here's the truth: Most people suck. You are just lucky enough to know it. You're not ready to go live alone in a cave - but you're getting there.

How Misanthropic Are You?

And the hilarious part is that I'm in customer service. Actually I took this one twice. This is my first result:

You Are 82% Misanthropic

You are misanthropic to the point of being scary. In your view, people are a disease. You may want to lighten up a little - before you become a super villain!

How Misanthropic Are You?

And yup, if aliens came by (and didn't kill me already), I'd be joining them in purging the Earth of humans. As long as their plan was a lot better. Yeah, I'm a tweener. B/c as much as I don't enjoy being w/ humans very much, I do appreciate the products of human culture. So it'd probably be most humans I'd purge. Somehow the gamemakers, artists, Japanese seiyuus would be left untouched. ^_^

Quiz: Are You a Dumb American?

You Are a Smart American

You know a lot about US history, and you're opinions are probably well informed. Congratulations on bucking stereotypes. Now go show some foreigners how smart Americans can be.

Are You a Dumb American?

Bwahahahaha!!!!! And I'm not American either! Which of course means that people from other nations know more about the USA than the inhabitants themselves. But we all knew that. If the Americans didn't believe so much in their propaganda of Manifest Destiny, they probably wouldn't be the superpower they are today. Mind you w/ Bush's mistakes, maybe they'll finally realize that they're really not that special at all.

Honesty is no policy

Just listening to Definitely Not the Opera on CBC Radio right now, and today's topic was Lying, Faking it, Bamboozling, and all that implications, benefits and techniques. First topic was lying in the workplace and how recruiters are now expecting resumes to be padded so they'll automatically downgrade your resume. Which of course sucks for those of us who aren't that good at lying. I'm a fairly good writer, though not as well as when I was in university, but when I stare at my resume...it's hard enough to keep the sarcasm out when I'm describing my previous/current employment. Trying to pump it up is tantamount to torture. Of course w/ the recent changes @ my workplace, and state of the job market, it's time to start fluffing up the resumes.

Then there was the topic of fake working in the workplace. And I've seen most of those techniques a lot where I am. And it's true that a lot of those who get promoted or are OM favourites aren't the most competent. But they can get away w/ it b/c they know how to schmooze. For those of us who are too embittered to fake caring about the crappy job; or even if we did care, aren't skilled enough at faking to emulate the cheese, get passed over. And if we point out the other's inadequencies we get labelled. So it really sucks. Case in point, one of the supervisors complained about the lack of floor support and wanted me to forestall my break. When my break was already an hour past. So I flatout told him "well that's when the supervisors are supposed to fill in." And he just gave me an incredulous look, when I was actually quoting policy. But a lot of the supervisors don't help their agents w/ questions or escalations. One of the agents who was just helping w/ questions had a list of customers who had escalated, and I guess she expected us to call them back even though we were all busy. All of those customers should have gone to the supervisors, even if it did skip Tier I(floor support) and went to Tier II(supervisor). When I was a supervisor and there was no Floor Support, I just took the escalation b/c 1) allowed your agent to go back to taking other calls and hence generating revenue 2) kept the customer from waitng longer and hence pissing them off 3) demonstrated to rep that you wanted to help them and hence improving relationship 4) was usually just repeating what the agent told them and let you do your paperwork 5) fulfilled contractual obligation to have "phone time". And I'll tell that to any supervisor. And they might not like it, b/c I save my candy-coating for the customers. But you know, I've been told by my supervisor that I'm really direct and to the point, but never that I'm wrong.

Anyways on Thursday, finally got to tour the new worksite. We'll all be over there by mid-May. And the place totally blows. It's a 30+ min bus ride from my place. There is only 1 clothing store in their dumpy little strip mall. And the clothing store is very low-end. There is no bookstore, a used bookstore, but that doesn't count. Only 2 major chain stores. I told my friend that it's the place where stores go to die. It's a horrid little wretched place, and prone to vandalism when it's dark. About an hour after the tour ended, I was in a complete daze b/c it was so abysmal. I'll have nowhere to go on my breaks. They have X-Men vs. Street Fighter in their lunchroom but it's $1 to play. An 8 year old game! They only have 2 refrigerators, 2 microwaves. For 700 employees. That's ridiculous. And their washrooms are quite far away from where our project is so if we actually go there during our breaks like we're supposed to, we'll lose 5 min from our 15 min break. Yeah, so it's definitely time to ...inflate the resume. But I'd taken 40 hrs of vacation earlier in the year, and I haven't earned back the deficit yet, so I don't want clawback when I quit. Yeargh.

On a more happy note, I got my Luva-sama and Marcel-san CDs. I still haven't gotten my Pokemon DS Lite accessories even though they were sent earlier. Anyways, Luva-sama is sooooooooo kawaii. Marcel-san just makes you want to hug and pet him. I was stifling my squeals b/c I didn't want to miss anything. It was very short CD b/c there was only a character song, a monologue, and then a chapter in a continuing story. I don't have the first 2 CDs (featuring different characters) so I'm not sure why Marcel, Zephel and Randy were in Luva's room and how they broke one of his cups. But it was sooooo funny. Yup, that's Japanese seiyuus for ya, even if you only recognize 1 out of 20 words, you can still figure out what's going on and/or just enjoy their performance.

Fireworks are an awesome distraction

Finally bought my hockey bag yesterday. Decided to just spend the extra money and go for the most cost effective one w/ wheels. It's huge and comes all the way up my lower ribs when I stand it up on it's wheels. It was a real hassle trying to carry it home b/c w/ the hard bottom, it kept banging against my legs, and I knocked a bunch of stuff over b/c it was so big.

Anyways I had a dream that involved that bag. Seems that our company decided to take most of us on a trip to UK (which would never happen but this is a dream after all) So I have my bag packed up, and was travelling in B's really old van w/ some of my co-workers and her son DW. It was drizzling, so we stopped by a restaurant and were just eating and B asked her son "So where's that rainbow that you're going to make?" And DW replies "Oh, it's going to show up." I look out the window and there's a rainbow! But it wasn't quite your usual half-circle rainbow that was kinda faint. Part of it was very clear and parts were faint, and I could see it being created like the airshow stunts. And it was about 240 degrees of a circle. So we were all going "wow" and B mentioned that DW had always been able to do that since he was little. So it's getting darker and we're still at the restaurant when fireworks start going on in the same direction the rainbow was. No one knew what it was for, but when they were still ongoing for a couple of minutes, we all started streaming out to watch. And they were nice fireworks; lots of big flowers, streamers, rockets. Then it seems that there were some red flashes from above the clouds and booms. The fireworks were still going but something hit me on my head. I don't know what it was, but it seemed very unusual, and I was standing outside trying to figure it out. The fireworks are dying out and everyone's talking about them, and suddenly a flare shoots up. Everyone else is wondering what the flare's for or maybe it's just a firework that isn't exploding properly. I go "Holy crap!", run into the restaurant and tell my friends to leave b/c it's an invasion. So we all pile into her van (I somehow had carried my bag into the restaurant and then also grabbed it w/ me to the van) and take off. Indeterminate time passes and now we're pulling up into a village and there's a small tea place.We're talking about how the lady was making fun of our accents b/c we can't match their British accents, and B goes into a horrible Southern accent, whereas I'm wondering if anyone noticed my mixed-up Brit accent picked up from years of watching British comedies and listening to BBC. Anyways we go into a small room, and suddenly realize there's a guy sitting there, and he's cooking something in a pot. We excuse ourselves and B asks how her son is. The man says he's feeling better, opens the pot and there's some plants brewing away. He grabs a handful of the reddish liquid and smears it on his arms. I ask him what it is, and he says "anil leaves." B asks why he isn't drinking it, and he says "you don't drink this stuff." So B takes a bit and puts it on her tongue and spits it back out, trying to scrape the rest off her tongue, and her tongue has this foamy layer on it. Then the proprietress of the tea shop attached to the building comes in and warns us to be careful b/c people are looking for us. The fellow starts saying that it was a hard battle trying to get us out, and I start going into a movie flashback of when we were travelling thru a marshy forest and then were attacked by some force, targetting DW. Then these 2 pine-like creatures come out and chase them off. And one of those pine creatures is the fellow sitting w/ us but got injured. And that's when I woke up.

Now anil does exist, and it's used to make indigo dye, according to Wikipedia. However I was able to find an article by US govt that its leaves are also used as poultices for treatment of hemorrhages, skin parasites and boils. There's also this article by the Oxford journal detailing that it is effective against certain skin diseases caused by dermatophytes. DW also believes that he has some kind of psychic powers, mostly influenced by his current gf Erin. B doesn't believe him at all. And of course we wouldn't be travelling in B's van (which I don't think she owns one) to UK b/c we'd have to ship it across the Atlantic. But fireworks to attract civilians out in the open and keep them distracted, using it as a cover for troop movement? That's plausible.

Why Nemesis killed Star Trek

So I was wiki-ing Romulans @ work, and it was okay up until I got to the part about Shinzon and Nemesis. There's just so much about that movie that makes no logical sense. It's fine and dandy that the Romulans decided to stop the replace Picard ops, but to not eliminate all the evidence(Shinzon) is just sloppy. Certainly that'd prove that the people in charge deserved to die, and the Praetor was unfit for the position, but was the writer's actually aiming for that? Anybody would know that you kill the clone, keep a sample for a rainy day, and shred/frag all documentation. Stupid stupid stupid.

Then there's the part about Shinzon getting his viceroy to help him mentally rape Troi. Which is stupid b/c Troi should have really good mental shields since she works w/ people who are suicidal, extremely angry, emotionally unstable and everything in between. Secondly if the viceroy can establish a strong enough mental link that a trained empath (who grew up in a society of telepaths) can't break easily, over 100s of kilometres, to someone that he'd have most only touched and didn't know at all...then why the hell isn't he doing more w/ his telepathic abilities?!! It's just moronic writing to get in that scene. Oh, and she could use the telepathic link to find him. Yeah okay, well for a guy w/ vast mental abilites, he also had sh!tty shields.

Yeah, I did actually manage to sit thru the movie when it came out on TV. It was not great, not even including the aforementioned problems. Just seemed to overcomplicate things for no good reason.

Hate Enterprise too b/c of how they f*cked up the Vulcans, but that's another post. Gonna read "The Moon and Sandals" by Fumi Yoshinaga. Yoshinaga-san is such an awesome mangaka. Some people may not like her style b/c it's much slower, has a plot and develops the character, and doesn't have loads of sex. The art is much simpler w/ fewer background details. But her characters are really delightful to look at w/ lots of personality. I think it's more a mature yaoi which you have to be in the mood for, b/c it does take a lot of time to develop. It's manga to savour. Not that I don't also have tons of PWP yaoi too. I like the comedy yaoi. That's always good.

Quiz: What Japanese Smiley Are You?

You Are "Wow"!

What Japanese Smiley Are You?

Oh, that's so cute! Japanese smilies are really cute. I only know a few like ^_^ and >< .And that's pretty much about it. Probably b/c I don't do much chatting or txt msging.